. 56.] TO CHARLES DARWIN. 553 



I have no doubt of the full and entire correctness 

 of the principles you work on ; and the Kew Floras 

 and the "Genera Plantarum' will more than any- 

 thing else determine the public botanical opinion and 

 mode of working for the next generation. But I sus- 

 pect that there will remain after all a great many 

 monotypic genera (consider how many of the most dis- 

 tinct genera are so, or nearly so) ; and I imagine it is 

 best to work without prejudice for or against them. 



I dare promise I shall be satisfied with all you 

 have done in Composite. As to Umbelliferae, I wish 

 you joy of the job, and do hope you will reduce the 

 genera twenty per cent at least. I never could take 

 the least satisfaction in them. I never could collate 

 our Umbellif era3 with European genera, and I have no 

 clear conception of more than half a dozen of our 

 genera. . . . 



Ever, dear Bentham, yours most cordially, 



A. GRAY. 



TO CHARLES DARWIN. 



CAMBRIDGE, March 26, 1867. 



This is to acknowledge yours of February 28. 



You see I have printed your queries 1 privately 

 (fifty copies), as the best way of putting them where 

 useful answers may be expected. Most of them will 

 go into the hands of agents of the Freedmen's 

 Bureau, etc. Others to persons I or Wyman may 

 know and rely on. I wish I had had them sooner. 

 My crony Wyman has been two months in Florida, 

 but will be home again before I could send to him. 



I did not write the article in the "Nation' on 

 Popular Lecturing, though it contains so many things 



1 A set of questions on expression, etc. 



